In this training, Ellen Violette shares the importance of finding a niche, differentiating yourself within that niche, and finding a target market that wants what you have, has money to spend and can’t wait to spend it with you!

Resources mentioned

Business Success Giveaway
http://ellenlikes.com/businessgiveaway

Google Keyword Tool
www.googlekeywordtool.com

Wordtracker
www.wordtracker.com 

Book:
Niche Down, How to Become Legendary by Being Different
(Co-authored by Heather Clancy)

3 Key Points

Small businesses don’t have the budget to complete with big, generic keywords, so you much niche down.

Find a hole in your market and fill it.

You want a target market that is online, has money to spend, is easy to reach, and can’t wait to spend their money with you.

Transcript

Hi I’m Ellen Violette and today we’re going to talk about being unique finding a lucrative niche and target market where you can shine.

[.08] Before I get started I want to tell you about a free success giveaway for business owners that is being sponsored by my friend and colleague Cindy J. Holbrook. It runs from today, November 11, 2019 to November 30^th, 2019. In that giveaway, I’m offering a free Bestseller Book-writing Checklist and the #1 Bestseller Launch Checklist, you can grab them both by going to http://ellenlikes.com/businessgiveaway I hope you’ll go over there, get my gifts, all the other amazing gifts that are going to be there, so go and get your gifts and enjoy that.

[1:02] So, the way you find a niche is by using the Google Keyword Tool; the best way to get to it is to go to www.googlekeywordtool.com

The problem is that unless you’re running ads you cannot use it anymore. So, what I use instead is Wordtracker. They have a free version that you can use if you don’t have too many words to look up. If you have a lot of words to look up you have to do it over a few days or you’ll have to upgrade.

[1:31] Let’s take an example like depression; “depression” gets almost half a million in volume on Wordtracker. Volume is not exactly the same as clicks but we use it in the same way-to help us decide which words we want to use.

[1:48] And as a small business, you won’t have the resources to compete trying to reach that big of a market like depression that’s got half a million in volume, so what you want to do is take a closer look and see if you can find something smaller that makes sense for your niche.

[2:04] So let’s say that you were interested in postpartum depression. Or, let’s say you didn’t know, but you went there and you saw that “postpartum depression” gets 46,917 volume a month. So, if you were interested in or knowledgeable in that (postpartum depression) that would be a better target market and you could make really good money with it!

[2:26] Now I usually look for words and phrases between 33,000 and 100,000 in volume. But the point is, you need a niche with a target market that is interested in what you have to offer, that is online, with money to spend,  and is fanatical about what you offer, so they will buy your books and other products and services over and over, tell all their friends about you too and get them to buy from you as well, but a niche that you can actually reach and do well in.

[2:54] What you don’t want is a niche where you are so excited about something, and you think everybody needs it, and you’re going to educate them. You don’t want to have to educate people – that is the quickest way to go broke. You want to market to those who already “get it” and are eager to buy from you, because you don’t have the time or the resources as a small business to educate your customer base.

[3:19] Now, there are a lot of businesses in every good niche, so you want to dig deep, you want to find out how the industries are doing in general in the current economy. If you can, you want to talk to business owners in that niche and get their take on their industry.

[3:34] Then, if you find a niche but nobody else is pursuing, don’t get too excited because it could be nobody is pursuing it because there is no money to be made in it. And, sometimes, there is a target market but they are not willing to spend any money. So, if you see something that looks like it should be doing really well and it is not, there is usually a reason-so make sure before you dive in.

[3:57] Now there are certain niches that are known to be very lucrative like wealth and health and if you can subniche in one of those you’re always going to do well. Relationships is another one.  Generally, to be successful, you want to find a niche that is already popular where there is a lot of money to be made where you can maybe add a new twist, a new delivery system, something to improve upon what is already out there and, of course, one that you are passionate about and have the skills to succeed at because it’s very difficult to succeed if you don’t enjoy what you’re doing.

[4:35] Now this is known as a blue-ocean strategy, which is where you look for a large market where the sharks are (but no one is selling exactly what you are selling and/or in the same way). The sharks mean, that’s where all the people go to try to sell other people stuff. And this is a red ocean-the sharks are feeding there. But in a blue ocean strategy, it’s just outside of that, so it still caters to the same target market but it’s outside the feeding frenzy (so there is no competition.).

[5:03] Another way to look at-another thing that you should give consideration is getting really focused within your niche.  So, I want to recommend a book called Niche Down. This was written by one of my authors, a #1 Bestselling Author, Christopher Lochhead (along with Heather Clancy). And Christopher is not only a #1 bestselling author, but he’s also got the #1 business podcast in Apple, so he knows what he’s doing. The name of the book is Niche Down, How to Become Legendary By Being Different.

[5:34] Another thing I suggest is checking out blogs in niches you’re thinking about pursuing and see what is out there, you can look at Facebook groups, you can do a Twitter search at search.twitter.com and see what people are hungry for in a given niche, and see if you can find something that’s exciting to you where you can figure out how to give them what they want that they aren’t already getting.

[5:56] Another great way to do that is to go into Amazon and look at the reviews because people will tell you what they’re not happy with; they’ll tell you what they wish had been in the books that weren’t there.

[6:07] Now one of my students did just that, she went and figured out where there was a hole in her niche and I helped her make $90,000 in ten months, and she’s since gone on to become a millionaire by finding a hole that wasn’t being filled in her market-which was the health-coaching business. She’s now quite well-known in her field and doing really great, so finding that hole can be huge for business success.

[6:33] So to recap, you want to find a niche that sells, and then find an angle within that niche that is a little different, a little outside what everyone else is doing and very focused, so you can succeed in a big way.

[6:48] But, it’s not enough to just find a great niche. You have to have a great target market within a niche. So, you want to find a  target market that you have an affinity for. That means if there are people that you relate to, that you understand their problem- people buy from people they know, like and trust and when you understand their problems and speak their language, they are going to trust you.

[7:10] It is best to pick a target market that has a problem that you’ve had and solved for yourself, or that you solved for someone else, or you’ve watched somebody else go through or you’ve studied and are highly educated in, or a combination.

[7:23] Again, just find that right market. You can go to Facebook groups, chat rooms, discussion boards, get on calls with other people in your field, listen to the market. Listen to how they speak, the words they use, what they say, what they are looking for; find something that you could deliver that is in alignment, again, with your passion, your skills and what people say they want.

[7:45] You can do surveys; you can be on other people’s lists and see what they are offering based on their surveys. Often times, the big guns will do these, so you don’t have to. By being on their lists, you get some really great information that you can use in your own marketing.

[8:02] You can also learn what your market wants by doing free webinars and teleseminars and let them ask questions, also by doing customer appreciation days, and just asking them!

[8:14] And again, to find that right market you can also use the Google keyword tool. You can also go to Facebook groups, LinkedIn groups, Pinterest, now Instagram and just see what they want.

[8:30] There are a million ways to get the information you need. But what you don’t want to do is get stuck by researching and researching and never getting started. So, be careful about that . When you feel you’ve done enough research-where you start to get the same answers over and over you’re done.

[8:44] But also be aware that sometimes you’ll figure out what you think is your target market,  and you start to market to those people, and then by working with them you find out that you’re really not thrilled, and that’s okay.  You’re still getting more information that you can use so that you can hone in and decide who else you’d rather work with.

[9:03] That happened to me. When I first started working in my business there were so many people looking for book coaches and there were few people doing that and there were no ebook coach(es). I became the very first one in the world.   But over time, the market became way more saturated, and also people were buying so much stuff that they were getting to the point where they had run out of money to buy anything, else and then they were confused over who to buy from because there were so many choices and so the market really changed.

[9:34] And when that happened, I had to change. I had to figure out who my (new) target market was going to be. I also became much more experienced at what I was doing. I’ve now been doing this for fifteen years, and so I started offering higher-end packages and I started offering it to a particular target market.  And what I found was those people had the money to spend with me, but they were not particularly, necessarily,  enjoyable to work with. So then I had to say, “Who else is a similar target market but one that I would find more enjoyable?.

[10:07] Sometimes, you just have to start somewhere, get more feedback, and then make decisions based on that and keep going until you feel you’re somewhere where you’re really comfortable, you like what you’re doing  and  you’ve scaled up to the point where that market  is going to work for you for a long time.

[10:27] And then, sometimes, people do go into different markets. They might have the same information that they can give to people in different markets, so they’ll create different pathways for each one of those target markets to get into, and it’s all the same material but it’s focused a slightly different way so it appeals to that market.

[10:47] But, the main thing is to get started, you want to find a niche that works and where you can do something a little different and outside of what everyone else is doing, and then finding a target market that really wants that, that you can deliver to and that you enjoy working with.

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